Infidelity

Either God exists or He does not. Which of these two hypotheses are you betting on? This is how philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal addressed the readers of his famous book Ideas more than 300 years ago. Believers and even semi-believers will answer God without hesitation. Although it looks different in practice. They do not renounce God explicitly, but often explicitly alienate themselves from Him. They become prodigal sons, not all at once, but gradually. Let us try to express this concretely. I was talking to a businessman. He wakes up thinking of the many deadlines that await him that day. At breakfast, he throws a glance at several newspapers, drinks coffee, telephones the clerks in the car, looks over the most important files in the office, rushes to a meeting with the heads of departments, negotiates with representatives of other companies, receives visitors, hears complaints, signs contracts. All day, every day, the same merry-go-round. No thought of God, no prayer for guidance, and higher motivation for his work. In the evening, he often comes home with a head full of plans and worries. Whatever religiosity he may have inherited, such a way of life will gradually alienate him from God. Man enjoys, plans, decides, gets angry, disregards God, and is guided by vision, benefit, profit, and success. God, church, and good deeds are slowly forgotten. Such people, with this way of life, gradually lose interest in God and the spiritual life. Certainly, not all of them are businessmen. But do not we too get carried away by our worries so perfectly, that God has no place either in the mind, in the heart, or the feelings. We allow ourselves to be so deceived by our work, by our petty interests, that we lose other things, and above all, we lose contact with God. One ceases to commune with God, to consult with Him, to seek His company in prayer, to read the Holy Scriptures. His place is taken by friends, television, sports, career, and politics. It is not that he rejects God altogether, but he will always prefer something else. And they don’t miss God. It is similar to the story of the prodigal son. As long as he had enough money, and enjoyed life, it didn’t even occur to him to think about God. Which caused him to change his view of his Father, and his life. The poverty in which he found himself. And it will be similar today. It is only when people today lose the values on which they build their lives, then they will begin to seek God again. In other words, man must first empty himself, and make room for God. Voluntarily, man is probably not able to do this. He must be forced to do so by external circumstances. Just as they forced the prodigal son.